Posted
by
kdawson
on Sunday May 30, 2010 @02:15PM
from the free-for-now dept.

silverpig sends this excerpt from the Wifitalk.ca blog: "Skype has just announced that an updated version of its iPhone app has been released to the App Store and now allows calling over 3G. While this functionality has been available on the iPhone since a January update to the SDK, and while other apps such as Fring have enabled 3G VOIP calling through their apps, Skype has been noticeably absent from the VOIP-over-3G landscape. Until today." A reader adds: "Included in the app update are some UI tweaks and a call quality indicator to help you predict what your VOIP-over-3G call quality will be like. Most interesting in the announcement is the suggestion that while Skype-to-Skype over 3G will be free for 2010, Skype is investigating pricing options and may charge for it in 2011. This could lead to smartphones being sold with data only + Skype plans."

Right, in the sane world there would be no difference. I was doing Skype over 3G EVDO like 3 or 4 years ago, but then again my Treo wasn't controlled by Apple and the network it ran over was Sprint.

In the AT&T/Apple world, you the consumer don't make choices. You don't run software willy-nilly. They allow you to run software, and if that software is seen as taking away profits from either entity then it won't get approved. Or in this case gets approved after 2 years of complaints, threatened lawsuits, and the FTC breathing down AT&Ts neck.

Why is it every time there's an phone article, you N900 guys come out and tout your unloved phones? Yes, we all know you can do everything in an unrestricted way on your amazing wonderphone. It's time you guys faced up to the fact that the experience of using it is truly awful and nobody wants to buy this phone, regardless of what it can do. I'm not sure Nokia could give these away for free. All this reeks of desperately trying to justify your purchase to an uncaring world. We're happy with our phones and obviously don't care about yours, so please stop telling us about it.

Gee, thanks for "allowing" this, you're all too kind. [...] But I'm sure it will be a great innovation and a lot of fuss about it when the iPhone 4G or whatever invents video calls later on.

You do realize that the company that is "allowing this" is Skype, not Apple, right? There was an Apple-imposed restriction on apps using VOIP over 3G, but that was lifted back in January -- hell, that's even in the summary of this article! Other apps that were released or updated since then have supported it.

The news here is that Skype finally updated their own app, and Skype may start charging for their service when used over 3G -- money that would go to them, not to Apple, AT&T or anyone else. That's the only "innovation" we're talking about here.